Thai Chicken Curry with Bamboo Shoots

On my Rasa Malaysia Facebook fan page (“like” me if you haven’t), a reader asked me how to prepare Thai-style chicken curry with bamboo shoots, like the ones commonly served at Thai restaurants here in the United States. It was a coincidence that I had some leftover bamboo shoots in the refrigerator so I made a small pot of Thai chicken curry with the leftover.

Talking about bamboo shoots, some readers also commented that some bamboo shoots have a very strong and funky smell. That’s a truth as I recalled buying bamboo shoots reeking of horse urine (I am not kidding!). The safest option is to buy canned bamboo shoots, which have been cooked and sliced into pieces. They are available at most supermarkets and Asian grocery stores, or online.

Anyway, here is my quick and easy Thai chicken curry recipe with bamboo shoots. If you love Thai food, you will certainly love this rich and creamy curry.

I recall enjoying lemak bamboo shoots (with prawns, so you will love it) curry and balitong/potatoes? curry cooked by a friends mother (Nonya) who was really a very great cook. That was over 40 years ago long before most of you were born. So this Thai bamboo shoot curry brings back memories for me. Bamboo shoots are believed to be very “hong”.

Will try to cook the bamboo shoot/prawns curry next time I go to the market. Wonder if adding slices of brinjals into the curry will be nice. Adding petai may overpower the fragrance of the bamboo shoots.

Just a thought. Maybe someday you can give readers the recipe for frying champedak together with boiling champedak seeds to eat. Malays cook young champedak curry and the banana flower buds curry also. Both are also nice.

Aiyo….I really hate it when the bamboo shoots smell like horse urine. I get what you mean. There are Thai restaurants here serving Thai curry with smelly bamboo shoots, then it spoils the whole dish! How come they still serve it? arrghhhh…..

Made this tonight along with the 15-minute Tom Yum soup. It was great. The only substitution I made was golden brown sugar in place of palm sugar, and chicken thigh instead of chicken breast. I doubled the recipe but felt that I should have added a bit more coconut milk for a creamier taste. Will make again…

Just had horse urine smelling drunken noodles that we had to send back to the kitchen at a local thai restaurant. I thought I was going out of my mind, thankgoodness you’ve posted about this, we were thinking there was something worng with us, not liking a certain thai spice, that we couldn’t pin point. And instead of going out for thai next time, I’ll just make one of your recipes :).